I totally agree with your last statement. My setup is dmt coarse/fine benchstone, the duobase. Synthetic japanese whetstones 1000/4000 combo. Dmt dia sharps minis the 3pack with extra fine, fine and coarse. I have some oilstones that rarely use. I freehand everything. I love both but find the my dmt benchstone is the most useful, it trues my waterstones, oilstones if I have to and its very quick. The japanese whetstone is just a joy for japanese steel, it just feels like you are a accompishing something as you slice away the resin bond of the stone and for 25 bucks its hard to argue but my duobase is a luxury and I appreciate it. It really does depend on what I am sharpening, single/double bevel's and what I ultimately want to do with what I'm sharpening.
Ps if anyone wants to sell a an old norton white lilly pm me.
Agree, the DMT's are great and partiuclarly useful for bringing back your waterstones to a uniform level surface. I believe the combo stone I primarily use is also a 1000/4000 combo. It works very well & have not felt a need to go to anything finer. After that edge is put on I only need one or two light strokes on a MAC fine ceramic rod for occaisonaly realigning the edge. The Idahone does 10 degrees a side (close to most of the factory grinds in these types of knives) and works well on my Shun stuff, but some of the spendy stuff (Mr. Ito or Mr Saji if you are familiar with them from japaneseknifedirect) only sees the waterstones.
It is almost meditative working some of them over.
The rest of the diamond (gerber etc) stones are far too aggresive for that type of superfine edge & better suited for thinning duty or bringing back field blades that are 59+ RHC.
Learned how to sharpen on Arkansas oil stones & will never go back:laughing:.
Way too much work & the surface hardness varies from spot to spot on the stones producing minor irregularities as you work the edge.
Not a big fan of the carbide V type edge shapers either for restoration purposes.
Have you tried any of the suspended diamond spray on a strop yet?
Been wanting to check it out for a set of bevel edge Saji's that are just wicked sharp, hand hammered damascus around 62RHC.
Was skeptical about a bevel edge cooking knfe, but they hold an edge forever & just fall through almost any prep job you can try them on.
Have you tried any camelia oil on the blades for protection / conditioning?
Much better than the mineral oil I've use in the past for this.
We need a kitchen knife thread around here for the ocd foodies next!